Technology Acceptance Model and Mobile Communications

The technology acceptance model is commonly used by mobile communication scholars to explain and predict people’s acceptance and usage of different mobile devices and applications across diverse cultures, including the acceptance of text messaging in Hong Kong (Yan, Gong, & Thong, 2006), SMS advertising in mainland China (Zhang & Mao, 2008), mobile Internet in China and Korea (Cheong & Park, 2005; Hong, Thong, & Tam, 2006; Qi, Li, Li, & Shu, 2009), mobile banking in Kenya (Lule, Omwansa, & Waema, 2012), mobile commerce in Taiwan (Wu & Wang, 2005), multimedia

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applications of 3g mobile phones in Italy (Pagani, 2004), and mobile learning services in Korean and Taiwan colleges (Chang, Yan, & Tseng, 2012; Huang, Lin, & Chuang, 2007; Park, Nam, & Cha, 2012; Son, Park, Kim, & Chou, 2012; Tsai, Wang, & Lu, 2011).

As a result of all of this research, mobile communication scholars have confirmed the TAM’s predictive potential in mobile-related contexts. People accept a mobile

technology primarily to improve their work performance or life quality. For example, many Koreans intend to use mobile Internet because they believe that the mobile Internet is applicable and beneficial to their job (Kim & Garrison, 2009; Kim, 2008; Son, et al., 2012); also, many Korean students are willing to register for a class that distributes learning materials via mobile devices and encourages mobile communications between teachers and students, in part because they think this class is related to their major and is able to boost their future career (Park, et al., 2012). Such research has found that

perceived usefulness usually played the most important role in predicting attitudes toward using mobile technology, which is similar to research that employed TAM to study other technologies (Legris, et al., 2003).

As suggested by TAM, people favor and adopt a mobile technology partially due to perceived ease of use. Many times, people are more likely to use mobile technology that they believe has easy input of a foreign language (Yan, et al., 2006), certain training programs (Son, et al., 2012), great system quality (Cheong & Park, 2005), a low level of technological complexity (Lu, Yu, Liu, & Yao, 2003; Son, et al., 2012), a high level of use speed (Pagani, 2004), accessibility (Park, et al., 2012), compatibility (Lu, et al., 2003; Schierz, Schilke, & Wirtz, 2010; Wu & Wang, 2005), and mobility (Amberg,

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al., 2010). This is because those characteristics provide people with convenience of time, place, and execution, and thus relieve a lot of physical and mental efforts in the use of mobile services (Chang, et al., 2012; Lu, et al., 2003).

In general, prior studies have found that TAM reported a higher model fit and explained more variance of the dependent variable than other technology-related theories, such as the expectation-confirmation model, in interpreting the adoption of mobile-based innovations (Hong, et al., 2006). As such, mobile communications scholars have also extended TAM by considering the particular characteristics of mobile devices and suggested adding more independent variables.

For example, research has suggested that people’s attitude toward accepting a mobile technology would be greatly influenced by the perceived price. After all, it requires a certain financial capacity to support the adoption and the continued use of either the latest mobile devices or fashionable mobile applications. Perceived price refers to an individual’s perceptions of the cost for using a given technology. The perceived price negatively influences people’s attitudes and use intentions across diverse mobile technologies (Amberg, et al., 2004; Cheong & Park, 2005; Kim, Park, & Oh, 2008; Kim, 2008; Luarn & Lin, 2005; Pagani, 2004; Wu & Wang, 2005; Yan, et al., 2006). For instance, one study found that people tend to try and use the mobile Internet if their company is willing to fund the use, which would definitely reduce their perceived price of using the mobile Internet (Kim, 2008).

In addition, mobile donation involves payment through mobile devices, which people may feel concerned about for security, credibility and privacy reasons. Perceived credibility, as applied in the TAM, has thus been defined as the extent to which a person

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believes that the use of a given mobile technology will have no security or privacy threats (Luarn & Lin, 2005, p. 880). Perceived credibility significantly predicted people’s

attitudes and use intentions of technologies that require mobile payments, such as mobile commerce (Wu & Wang, 2005), mobile banking (Luarn & Lin, 2005; Lule, et al., 2012), and mobile payment (Dahlberg, Mallat, & Öörni, 2003). Particularly, in the case of mobile banking adoption, perceived credibility was the most powerful independent variable in predicting people’s attitudes, compared with the traditional TAM independent variables of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use (Luarn & Lin, 2005; Lule, et al., 2012). It is thus reasonable to infer that perceived credibility would similarly

influence people’s attitudes toward making donations via texting. Although mobile donations do not require people’s credit card information or bank account number, but just the charge is applied to their cell phone bill, people may still feel some concerns about whether the payment is really a one-time charge or will be charged repeatedly, requiring additional efforts to cancel.

Prior research has identified three other major independent variables that influence people’s behavioral intentions to use mobile technology: past experience, subjective norm, and perceived behavior control. It is not surprising that people who have rich experience with using a certain mobile technology would be more likely to keep using it, because they have obtained the relative skills and have sufficient literacy to keep using it to benefit their job and life. Also, the more experience people have with a given technology, the easier they would perceive that technology to be to use (Cheong & Park, 2005; Kim, Park, & Morrison, 2008; Kim, 2008; Lu, et al., 2003; Qi, et al., 2009). Past experience here is similar to the concept of referent criterion in STOPS.

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Subjective norm originates from the theory of reasoned action, and refers to “a person’s perception that most people who are important to him think he should or should not perform the behavior in question” (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975, p. 302). Mobile

communication scholars believe that subjective norm could influence the acceptance and use of mobile technology for several reasons. First, many people, especially young adults, perceive mobile devices as part of fashion and believe the use of mobile devices can enhance their social status. Some people determine to use a given mobile device just to be cool among peers, which explains why their important others’ opinions could influence their decision making in terms of whether or not to use a mobile device (Kwon & Chidambaram, 2000; López-Nicolás, Molina-Castillo, & Bouwman, 2008; Lu, et al., 2003). Second, some mobile phone applications, such as social networking sites and collaborative mobile learning systems, encourage interactions among other users; thus it makes sense that the adoption of some mobile applications will be influenced by the behaviors of important others (Cheon, Lee, Crooks, & Song, 2012; Lu, Yao, & Yu, 2005; Lu, Zhou, & Wang, 2009; Park, et al., 2012). Third, when people have scarce knowledge and experience of using a mobile technology, they usually refer to their friends/family for advice (Schierz, et al., 2010). Subjective norm is particularly important in affecting people’s mobile phone use behavior in collectivism-dominated cultures such as that of mainland China (Zhang & Mao, 2008). In other words, even if people do not have much positive attitude toward an innovation, they may still want to take a shot just because their important others want them to use it. Generally, the subjective norms variable has been found to be important in terms of fundraising, and nonprofit organizations may encourage such norms in communication campaigns or media coverage of events

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(McKeever, 2013; McKeever, et al, 2016; Weberling, 2010). However, in several mobile- related cases such as SMS advertising, subjective norms have not had a significant influence (Muk, 2007), mostly because the process of receiving and reading SMS advertising does not require much interaction with others.

Studies also have found a relationship between perceived behavioral control and intention to use mobile technology (Cheon, et al., 2012; Lu, et al., 2009; Lule, et al., 2012). Perceived behavioral control originates from the theory of planned behavior, and refers to “the subjective degree of control over performance of the behavior itself” (Ajzen, 1985, p. 668). In other words, people might not perform a given behavior even if they have very strong attitudes toward that behavior, because they do not believe they have the capacity to control their own behaviors. In some instances, people have more perceived behavioral control when they believe they possess more resources and opportunities to perform a given behavior (Madden, et al., 1992). Taking a closer look, although perceived ease of use and perceived behavioral control could both generate efficacy to use a given technology, the former generates internal efficacy to control the operation of the technology itself while the latter generates external efficacy to control the time, money, and other resources required to use the technology in real life.

Based on the above literature on the technology acceptance model, this dissertation proposes the following hypotheses:

H7: There will be a positive relationship between perceived usefulness and attitude toward using mobile donation technology.

H8: There will be a positive relationship between perceived ease of use and attitude toward using mobile donation technology.

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H9: There will be a negative relationship between perceived price and attitude toward using mobile donation technology.

H10: There will be a positive relationship between perceived credibility and attitude toward using mobile donation technology.